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Wednesday, 22 March 2017

An open letter to writers submitting their work

Particularly to those writers who are hesitant to submit
their writing to magazines, websites, or even, for example, the Emma Press
calls for submissions. I’ve recently started submitting my work for publication
as well and while I don’t claim to know everything that you are feeling, there are
some general things that I understand.

First, the frustration of writing to a theme. Some writers
might find it useful to have a theme or subject to focus on, while others might
find it limiting. At first, seeing what the theme is, it will seem difficult to
come up with even one idea. “Customs and rituals”? “The colour red”? “Escape”?!.
You start wondering what on earth any of these mean. Sometimes you think of
some associations with the theme: “the colour red – like anger, or blood?
Should I write an angry and bloody story?” Or you might think about what it
means to you – “I had a red shirt that once belonged to an ex – is there a poem
in that?”

And then, once you start thinking of some ideas, there might
be some doubts about whether they are “good enough”. You start wondering whether they’re right for this theme, if
you’re able to write something good from these ideas, if you can even write at
all. It’s difficult having all these doubts but it’s important to work through
it to get to the actual writing process (which, unfortunately, is also full of
challenges). For me, I try to freewrite the beginnings of some ideas to see if
any of them work for me. Normally, I’ll be able to choose one that I don’t hate
and then develop it into something I actually kind of like. This process might
not work for you but finding something to get you writing in the first place is
usually helpful. Another thing I like to do is imagine Project Runway’s Tim
Gunn telling me to “make it work!” But that is really… just me. You don’t have
to do that.

Then comes the time to send your work in and with it, the
fear of rejection. Once you’ve submitted it, your work will be read and judged
and, for whatever reason, might be rejected. It’s scary for some people, but it’s
also not the worst thing that could happen. It can be disappointing if your
work isn’t accepted, but the other possibility is that it is successful and you
do get published. It is worth finding out. Probably the worst feeling, however,
is when the deadline has gone by and you haven’t submitted anything. It is
always worth trying. Even if your work is not accepted in one instance, there
will be more opportunities to try again, and learn, develop, improve, and all
those other clichés.

With this in mind, I hope that all of those hesitant writers
might feel more encouraged/less disheartened and get their work in for the Emma
Press’ current call for poems – good luck!

1 comment:

Thank you, Yen-Yen! I have submitted so many poems and received so many rejections, I sometimes thought I would never get anywhere as a poet. But I have had some successes, including having one of my poems included in the wonderful Emma Press Anthology of Aunts, and the feeling you get when that happens is difficult to describe, somewhere between a thrill, a sigh and the urge to shout it from the rooftop!